John Seales Bridge Delivered to Laurel Gulch!

Oh my poor tired feet! Things went right today and things went wrong today,
but fortunately we had more right than wrong as the new wood foot bridge was
airlifted from the Rincon Fire Station and gently set down at its new home.

Today began unlike most others since I awoke with a smile on my face,
anticipating the opportunity to watch and videotape the helicopter delivery
of the new bridge and to begin the final effort that would bring the bridge
project to a successful conclusion.

In to my backpack went two cans of vegetarian chilibeans, can of black
olives, crackers, mixed nuts, some
Good
And Plenty candy, about seven or eight bottles of water, some habenero
chilies, a book to read, video camera, GPS, no end of other bits and pieces
of tools and things I wouldn't need, then a sleeping bag and tent was roped
to the bottom of my pack and I was ready to go!

Oh, I almost forgot my hard hat which would have been very bad since without
it I would have been badly sunburned -- today was hot!

After being dropped off at Heaton Flats I immediately hit the trail, trying
to stay ahead of the SGVCC since I tend to be a lot slower in my dotting old
age and I had expected the SGVCC to catch up to me quickly. Instead I
managed to stay ahead of them for the entire hike up, probably because they
did formal exercises back at the trailhead to work the kinks out before
setting out.

It was really strange walking through the forest and cutting thousands of
spider webs strung from bush to bush. I must have been the first one on
that part of the trail this morning since I was getting covered in spider
silk and even eating the stuff since my stupid yap hung open from the
morning's exercise.

What was even stranger was some human further ahead screaming
"Bobbo" over and over again as loudly as he could down by the
river that I was following. Eventually I came out of some trees and saw
that a man was crouched down along the river shirtless and grinning, looking
rather beat up and dirty (but then we all look like that out here after an
hour or so) and apparently hiding from the screamer.

I waved, yelled "hello" trying to see if he was having some kind
of violence or medical problem by judging the response, if any. I got back
a wave and a grin so I continued on to where the screamer was standing along
the river.

"Did you see a guy named Bob?" the guy asked. I looked him over
carefully also, shirtless, bulging gut, covered in scabs and sunburn.

"There's a guy down the river about a hundred feet," I yelled
across the river. "That may be Bob," I added since I didn't know the
man's name.

"Just down the river?" the screamer yelled back.

"He's watching you screaming," I yelled back at him then I
continued on.

It was really strange. The grinner was fairly thin, also sunburned, short
cropped hair but also not what I would have said was physically fit either.
It was strange these two would be out so early in the morning a mile and a
half from the trailhead, no shirts, no packs, no visible drinking water, no
nothing. Very strange.

I got to Laurel Gulch and examined the bridge footings. They looked great!
The wood forms around them had been removed by the SGVCC so the concrete was
exposed and looked to me to have only a few minor flaws, perfect for the new
bridge coming in.

After looking around I climbed down the cliff face and set up my tent out of
the way, and when the other team members showed up and we found there would
be a delay while a helicopter rigger hiked in, I dug out my book, sat in my
tent, and read for an hour.

When the helicopter was ready to come in, the SGVCC sent two teams up and
down the trail to ask hikers to stop for a while as the helicopter was
overhead in the unlikely event a load needed to be set free or set down.
Safety first! The two Hot Shot crews made sure that safety was our priority.

When the helicopter rigger hiked all the way in, the helicopter at Rincon
lifted a second rigger at the end of a long rope, and while hanging from
the bottom of the helicopter the guy was lifted over the mountain ridges
and through the river canyons all the way to Laurel Gulch.

The riggers and two Hot Shot crews attached a hanging load to the line
vacated by the "Dope on a Rope" guy, then the helicopter left.

Well, the guy who had been lifted in under the helicopter was amusingly
talkative, a little nicked up and bleeding a bit in places because of the
short diversion down the trail, but other than that things were on track
and going fine.

After the helicopter returned to Rincon, the bridge at Rincon was picked
up slowly, lifting off of the concrete work apron slowly because of the
weight and the high temperature which was around 90F by then. Back at
Laurel Gulch we could hear the ship approach so I was able to get good
video of the actual delivery every second that the ship was in sight.

Oh man, the wash coming down from the helicopter was phenomenal, gale force
winds that kicked up good sized rocks and a lot of dirt that slammed in to
the riggers, our engineer, the two Hot Shots, and myself, most of us wearing
the proper protective gear including goggles.

Unfortunately the camera that I used got hammered a bit and as the bridge
was being jockeyed in to position the shutter assembly on the camera was
damaged so it does not open any more. Still, I managed to get good video.
Now I need to disassemble the shutter and lens assembly and clean everything
to see if I can get that camera back working again.

After the heavy bridge was shoved in to position, more tools were tied to
the lines and were lifted off back to Rincon.

After the dust cleared, we got a good look at the bridge and how it sat on
the footings. To me it looks perfect! Absolutely perfect with no need to
nudge it even the slightest bit since it looks to me like it was settled
perfectly in to place. Looking at the video again I can see that there was
a lot more shoving to get the bridge in place than I remembered from real
life, so the crews did an excellent job placing the bridge.

There was one more airlift from Rincon, the railings and the curbing came
in about 20 minutes later and was dropped perfectly in place once again,
this time without any need to shove things around, and then the second
helicopter rigger who had gotten a bit scratched up climbed in to the cab
of the helicopter as it hovered down by the river, then we were done!

Lunch and then the SGVCC, the Hot Shots, and the engineer left, leaving me
behind so that I could sit next to the river on a boulder reading while
staying cool. A rattle snake snuck up behind me so that when I stood up
to dump some river water over myself, it shook and moved off so I grabbed
my stuff and found another boulder to sit on.

Over the radio I heard talk about someone needing to telephone home, so I
turned the volume up and found that it was our Dispatch Overlords talking
about me. Since I could only hear Dispatch and they could not hear me, I
couldn't tell them I was on line and to pass on whatever information they
had, all I could get from the chatter was that I needed to call home.

I looked around and did not find a telephone. In fact the only cell
telephone coverage I was aware of was back down at the base of the mountain
about 20 miles away so it was frustrating sitting there trying every
frequency the radio has and swapping out to fresh batteries trying to get
a line in to find out what was up.

Eventually after the Sun started heading West, I tried the radio again and
managed to get some back and forth to be told that I should hike back to
Heaton Flats for a "non emergency" which left me even more puzzled and
worried.

Ah well, I decided I had better get going even though the message was
several hours old, planning on hitchhiking to civilization once I got to
Heaton Flats' parking lot so I could get to a telephone and find out what
was going on.

I crammed everything in my backpack, abandoned my tent up there after
rolling it up and shoving it under the new bridge, then I double-timed
it all the way to Heaton Flats, burning up and sweating. There I found
Ben waiting for me, saying he had been planning on giving it another seven
minutes before leaving.

And on down the mountain we went, leaving the bridge behind to wait until
tomorrow. Tomorrow the crews will be heading back up without me and will
be putting the hand railing and curbing back on. After that the only thing
left is to build the dirt walkway up to the bridge and then it will be done!

And it will be awesome! There was a group of four hikers heading to the
Bridge To Nowhere that were the first actual hikers to use the bridge so
they had their photographs taken, saying they felt like celebrities. Once
fully reassembled, the new bridge will be Awesome times 2.

Email to the Crystal Lake Web SIte

c> Oh, quick question --
c> Who is the Seales Bridge named for?

Greetings, Casey!

John Seales was the Wilderness Coordinator for the San Gabriel River Ranger
District of the U. S. Forest Service, and before that he was a fire fighter
protecting forests across the Western United States. He was the epitome of
the hard-working, get-it-done, no-nonsense protector of the wilderness, a guy
who lived for the forests he was sworn to protect.

When he was a little kid he was attacked by a buck deer which he had to grab
and wrestle to the ground to avoid getting gutted, and from that day on he
knew he wanted to be a wilderness ranger. He saw the crapping up and
destruction of the nation's wild places and did what he could to try to save
whatever the fat cat Washington politicians hadn't already sold to corporate
criminals.

He was in many ways another Edward Abbey, living up at Camp Williams and for
a time at the abandoned fire station within the Crystal Lake Recreation Area,
and working long hours in the forest without pay, always quick to lend a
hand or to read someone the riot act for dropping a piece of litter or for
shooting firearms in the designated wilderness.

He took his duties to safeguard America's wilderness seriously, making sure
that no wheeled vehicles or tools, no oil-based lubricants, nothing banned
from Designated Wilderness was ever used within the wilderness, and to get
things done without modern tools he was creative and tireless.

He was with the Trailbuilders on a last major trail effort, using crosscut
saws in the Mount Waterman Designated Wilderness, two extremely hot, very
exhausting days and one sweltering night working along the trail using hand
tools to clear one of the nation's most loved trails of very large downed
trees.

Despite the disease he was fighting and the pain he continued to do his job
with wit, humor, laughter, and with a smile that would lift the spirits of
the rest of us. The last I saw of him before he died, he was hiking up
Upper Bear Creek Trail heading toward the Smith Mountain Saddle and the
San Gabriel Designated Wilderness beyond, heading up, I suspect, to survey
the placement of the new wooden Forest Sign that proclaimed the vista beyond
the Saddle to be a protected wilderness.

He was the best of the best among dedicated, dirty, sweaty, hard working,
low paid Forest Service employee, and the new bridge at Laurel Gulch is a
fitting monument to John since it's located just 40 feet from the Sheep
Mountain Designated Wilderness, a boundary that separates the realm of
Mankind and His machines and the realm of the Wilderness where wheels,
gasoline, and all that implies is not allowed, the gateway to a small plot
of the diminishing legacy our grandchildren might never get to see.

This web site is not operated or maintained by the US Forest Service, and
the USFS does not have any responsibility for the contents of any page
provided on the http://CrystalLake.Name/ web site. Also this web site is
not connected in any way with any of the volunteer organizations that are
mentioned in various web pages, including the
San Gabriel Mountains
Trailbuilders (SGMTBs) or the
Angeles Volunteers Association
(AVA.) This web site is privately owned and operated.
Please note that information on this web page may be inaccurate.